Audi, Jaguar and VW in running for World Car Award

The World Car Awards 2017 judges have revealed the top three finalists for the prestigious World Car of the Year prize – and this year, it’s an all-SUV trio of the Audi Q5, Jaguar F-Pace and Volkswagen Tiguan.

Reflecting car buyers’ ever-growing love of SUVs, the talented trio have been shortlisted by an international jury of 75 top automotive journalists, including Motoring Research’s Richard Aucock, from 23 countries around the world. The overall winner will be announced at the New York International Auto Show next month.

Audi and Volkswagen have both won the overall World Car of the Year award previously, but Jaguar has not – and it’s a double bonus for the British premium manufacturer as the F-Pace has also been shortlisted in the World Design of the Year category, alongside the Mercedes-Benz S-Class Cabriolet and Toyota C-HR.

Jaguar is the only manufacturer to have a car in the running for two WCOTY prizes.

Audi’s R8 Spyder is in the running for the 2017 World Performance Car award. It’s competing with the McLaren 570S and Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman. The well-established World Luxury Car award, meanwhile, is between the BMW 5 Series, Mercedes-Benz E-Class and Volvo S90 / V90.

The World Green Car finalists for 2017 are the Chevrolet Bolt EV family car, the Tesla Model X electric SUV and the Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid. A new award for 2017 is the World Urban Car, which aims to pick out smart thinking in the city car category. The BMW i3 84Ah, Citroen C3 and Suzuki Ignis are shortlisted there.

Car manufacturers will be crossing their fingers, as winning a World Car Awards prize is a big deal. For the fourth consecutive year, the scheme has been confirmed as the world’s number one automotive awards in terms of media reach.

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